Simulating Camera Pan in Flash

Hey guys, got a bit of a tricky flash question here. Like the subject suggests, I've found myself in need of simulating cinematic camera motions in Flash animations - namely pans and zooms.
The best example I can think of where this was implemented was here:
(link NSFW for excessive foul language and vulgarity) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/402450

I'm aware that its entirely possible to simply merge everything on the stage into a single symbol and animate that, but I'm wondering if there isn't some other way to do it, either via code or some other option that I've missed. I wonder this mainly because at one point I cracked open a SWF version of that cartoon, only to see an animated gray outline - a "viewport" - flying back and forth over the action similar to how a camera would, while the characters and stage remained stationary in the SWF onscreen.